This forfeiture, and how she feels it has ruined and cursed her, is central to Jirel’s character. In her pursuit of the male’s journey, Jirel has forfeited, to her regret, her feminine security and legacy by destroying someone who may have been able to provide them to her. The legacy may be achieved by works** or parenthood, leaving a mark upon the world, but the woman can best achieve legacy through motherhood and upbringing of children with (in conjunction with the goal of security) a man or without him. The woman does not have to seek virile stature among men to achieve her second or third goal, merely appeal to those who can help her achieve them. The male’s journey is to achieve stature, dominance, then legacy the female’s journey is to achieve stature, security, then legacy of course that is a gross simplification because how they go about these things are entirely different. Yet in her life prior to where Moore’s stories pick up, Jirel may have been attempting to undertake the male hero’s journey, which is why things have immediately gone to hell (quite literally) in her debut adventure. If Jirel were just some woman who fought monsters with swords and had adventures and quipped “I pity you, traitorous wizard!” as she vanquished some foe, she might very well be much more widely beloved and remembered today* and placed alongside John Carter, Conan and Stark on the pantheon of pulp action heroes, but she would also lose so much, if not all, of what makes her a fascinating character.įirst off, you really have to accept the premise that you can’t staple the male hero’s journey to a female hero to understand why Jirel is so different. Jirel of Joiry? It is weird in ways that cannot really be described loud tastes, flavorful sounds, deafening sights – Edvard Munch’s the Scream, but in blacks and purples and greens and with words. Tentacle monsters from beyond the stars driving a New England poof crazy? That’s pretty weird, I guess. Barbarians with swords killing shapeshifting reptile cultists? Kinda weird, I suppose. When Weird Tales billed Black God’s Kiss as “The Weirdest Story Ever Told”, they were perhaps only being slightly hyperbolic. I think Jirel’s relative obscurity has to do with the intensity and complexity of the source material.

Moore is beloved and influential, and with so many people supposedly out there looking for women heroes in SFF to hold up, Jirel’s sex is certainly not the reason. To those last two questions, the answer is “Of course not” C.L.

Why is Jirel of Joiry, one of few bona fide woman pulp Sword & Sorcery heroes, so comparatively obscure? Is it because Jirel is a female protagonist? Or is it because C.L.